Ups and Downs

It’s been a pretty decent week. I’ve continued to make headway in getting stuff out of the house. I cleaned up the back room, which had become a dumpster fire, both physically and emotionally (for me at least). My husband has indeed been stepping up since he started feeling better, which has provided me with some much needed margins in the afternoons. I also decided I’m going to work out four days a week again, instead of five, because that fifth workout was adding more stress than it was relieving.

We’re having another heat wave but its supposed to break today. Two of my friends have Covid again, and I feel like it’s just a matter of time before I get hit again. I haven’t looked into getting the new booster, but I should. My initial feelers suggested Kaiser was not going to make it easy, and I haven’t felt like fighting for it yet. But I should.

I did get a sports medicine appointment and went on Monday. I have some mild degeneration at L5-S1 which I guess is common. She referred me for physical therapy but I never got a call from them. Hopefully next week (I only remembered to email her today and let her know that they never called me).

We finished our Murakami puzzle. Our cat actually flipped it over last Sunday so we hard to start it all over again (we were over half way done). It was a giant bummer, and if my husband wasn’t so good at puzzles I probably would have given up. But we started again and after looking for – and finding! – missing pieces we finally finished it yesterday. It was very satisfying.

I went to a high school info night on Wednesday that actually felt worth my time. The next six weeks will be turned a little upside with high school tours and info nights and applications. I will be very happy when it’s over. It’s really hard for me to take a couple hours off in the middle of the day, but I have to do that four times in November, at least.

I got the cats into the vet – and after school! It feels like a miracle.

Our friends had their baby. It’s their second child and she was born just four days before my son’s birthday. It had me thinking a lot about when he was born, 10 years ago. I went onto Shutterfly and downloaded some pictures onto my phone. We looked very happy then. I remember being happy. I remember really appreciating my time with him, because I knew he was my last baby and I couldn’t believe I got to do it all again. I was so grateful.

It’s looking like our anniversary getaway will just be two nights somewhere close by. I’m trying to process my disappointment quickly. I know we’re lucky to get away at all. But I guess I thought things would be easier for us by now. And for a short while they seemed to be. But things feel really tight again and it feels like were constantly having conversations about what we can’t afford anymore. It doesn’t feel great. Inflation is really real. Lifestyle creep is real. We need to be better at budgeting.

This weekend is full. Hopefully it will also be fun. We shall see. I’m trying to go into it with realistic expectations. Our son is handling his birthday better than he has… maybe ever? I really hope he enjoys his sleep over. I really hope I don’t regret throwing it.

It’s 11:30 and I still have 35 slide deck activities to score. Boo. Better get at it.